There were action items on the agenda of the special March 25th, 2 pm, systemwide Assembly meeting of the Academic Senate which had been called by petition. A little over 300 people were on the Zoom call at the start of the meeting. Most were not members of the Assembly. Yours truly attended so you didn't have to.
The first item asked that across-the-board pay increases for administrators from dean on up occur at the same time as those for regular faculty. In recent years, the former had been getting increases on July 1 and the faculty on October 1. It became clear from the discussion that this vote was largely symbolic of concern by faculty about excessive salaries for top management. Chair Steven Cheung at one point called the resolution "mean-spirited." That remark set off some controversy. A vote was taken first by electronic hand raising. Twenty were reported as in favor, 2 abstained, and 23 voted against. There was some uncertainty about the accuracy of the vote and a roll call was pursued which came out about the same. It was ruled that the motion had failed.
The second matter dealt with a report about converting the entire UC system to a common calendar of semesters. It was said that ultimately it would be the decision of the Regents, were such a conversion to happen. There was debate about the merit of semesters vs. quarters, about the cost of making a transition, and whether it would be best to let the Senate process run its course before making any decisions.
Chair Cheung said that there is currently no plan for changing calendars at UCOP. Several speakers indicated that given the current budgetary situation, federal funding, and other challenges facing UC, this was not a time to consider adding the burden of changing the calendar.
The there was an action item over a motion that initially assumed any change would be from quarters (for those campuses on quarters) to semesters. A clarifying point was that UC-San Francisco - because it has no undergraduates - would be exempt. The motion was amended to suggest that there be a campus-by-campus vote on adopting a common calendar (whatever that might be) versus remaining on each campus's existing calendar. But by the time a vote might have been taken (around 3:50 pm), a quorum of Assembly members had been lost.
As a result, no vote was taken and the matter will either be taken up again at another special session or at the next regular meeting of the Assembly if there is room on the agenda.
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Note: Do you have a sense that not much was accomplished after two meetings and one meeting that was aborted by a technical glitch? Yours truly does.
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